This invention relates to coking in general and, in particular, to a new and useful method of preheating coal for coking by bringing it into direct contact with a hot operating gas and, wherein, the operating gases, after it is separated from the coal which is passed to the coking furnace, is dedusted and the coal collected from the dedusting is accumulated and delivered to a burner for generating at least a portion of the operating gases and the amount of coal in the accumulator is used as a regulator of the separator for separating the gases from the coal after they preheat it.